I used to play at the Strat fairly regularly, both on vacation, and within the past few months now that I live here. It's one of my aquariums, so to speak.

I liked the old room better. It was actually a room. I'm with others that despise poker rooms being called "rooms" when actually they're just a roped off section of the floor, or in the case of the new room at the Strat, a 3.5 ft wall.

The dealers are nice. The floor personnel are great people, very friendly, know me by my first name, BUT.....

I've witnessed way too many incidences where the floor meekly backed down to aggressive (verbally and borderline physically) players over disputes.

The one I witnessed last weekend may keep me from the Strat for a while. In short, a gentleman who claimed to be from South America, Columbia, I believe, was doing very well, as he had at least 1k in front of him when I sat down. This guy was a complete a$$. If anyone disputed him over anything, it was a serious confrontation. He was physically threatening people. Everyone seemed to just blow him off, some younger guys even added fuel to the fire, by egging him on.

At one point, it was he and another gal in a very large pot. He announced raise, lifted a stack of chips up, crossed over the line with the chips, as he was making this motion, the gal quickly called "all in" and he withdrew his chips and denied everything. Well, this is basic poker rules here people, and even the carps at the Strat were on to this one as everyone at the table almost in unison said, "NO!!!!"

The floor was called, he threatened everyone. The floor eventually made him give up the chips. He slammed them down, then threw them at the gal that had won the pot. He continued to curse this gal, the floor, and especially the dealer. He kept telling the dealer he was going to spit on her and spit on everyone of his chips that she would have to handle for the rest of the game.

There were more verbal and physical threats after that as well. Not only should this guy been asked to leave the poker room, SECURITY SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT THE VERY LEAST, ESCORTED OUT OF THE CASINO.

Instead, if you can believe it, he was allowed to continue to play.

Maybe a staff member from the Strat reads this forum, if so, and they were there last weekend, they know what I'm talking about.

_________________
Set Farmer Extraordinaire
http://vegasflea.blogspot.com/

The Other day i went to play at the strat (I wante dto go somewhere different and Rakewell had recently written a blog entry about it)

I ended up leaving in an angry huff after an incident where a obviously new dealer got run over by some player who thought he was a floor person. The floor came over and I could tell he was almost as weak as the dealer. I got up and left before I was going to do something I really would regret.

i always liked to play in this room
usually there tournament in almost99% of the trips there

as for bad players, you have to treat them just like someone
thats already just tryin to piss ya off and tilt ya
try to keep to your self and just show him your cards take his money
sit there weight him out and take what he got.........
........but now after this point of verbal and physical disputes
i spent alot of time in many many casinos
in this case start witht he dealer,go to the floor,then ask for
higher up managment, they should have more than 90% as it sounds
i wouldve gotten his a$$ tossed for sure.

there is a certain amount of curt-i-see, one should have with fellow players/ guests.. and it sounds liek he cross the line
if you know your right, and you absolutle know it too.
get him tossed,if the floor and or dealer are weak
be MORE assertive, i can understand they back down cuz they depend on ALL THERE ACTION THEY GET IN THERE, and they dont want to have a player be disgruntled, but in return he pissed off everyone else, making them disgruntled, the point is every gaming in vegas
is all power by someone high up on a chain, NGC is at the top
go from dealer to floor to a pit boss with some balls, you go up high enuff
and your problem is solved so to speak

speak your side of the conflict,anyone can get booted from a table if
all 9 other players feel threaten,or a abused,
get him tossed

I played in the 8:00 PM Stratosphere tournament for the first time in a few months. It's $60 and you get 4000 chips with 25/50 starting blinds and 20 minute levels. It was a pretty typical donkfest that turned into a pushfest by the 4th round. I've played the $65 T.I. tournament at 7:00 a few times and I think it's much better mainly due to the insertion of an extra 75/150 level instead of going from 50/100 to 100/200.

I actually like the new room better than the old one. It seems a lot more spacious and not as secluded. Those who need it to be quiet like a library won't like it, as it is open to the rest of the casino. The good thing is there's more walk-by traffic in this new location.

One annoyance. I was the 21st person to sign up for the tournament and they said they'd put me on an alternate list. After me about 4 more people signed up and they too were put on the alternate list. They said they would open a new table if they got enough alternates, but otherwise we would have to wait for somebody to get busted out. The only other game going in the room was a 1-2 NL game, so there were plenty of open tables. I don't understand why, with 25 people, they didn't do 3 tables of 8-8-9 instead of 2 tables of 10 and putting everybody else on a list. I got in right around the middle of the 2nd level, but I don't even know about the people who were at the end of the list. They might have left rather than enter the tournament so late.

Do any other rooms do this when they have the room to start a new table? It seems pretty silly to me.

Oh a couple more things....

With alternates there were about 24 people total yet they only played two places! First was like $740 and second was $200-something.

And f-ck their parking garage. I parked on level 4 and when I tried to leave I did a loop around the same level 2 times because the signs pointing to the exit are flat out wrong.

Daytripper-

I guess we'll agree to disagree about the new "room."

BUT, I 100% agree with the parking garage. The engineers or architects that designed this thing, need to be take out back to the woodshed. As I mentioned earlier, I used to stay and play there quite often. Almost everytime upon leaving the garage, I'd be doing circles looking for the exit. I even mentioned it one time to the security guard, he assured me it wasn't just me!

_________________
Set Farmer Extraordinaire
http://vegasflea.blogspot.com/

Bob Stupak himself must have designed the parking garage because it is clearly the work of a lunatic.

Before or after the wreck/accident that requied reconstructive surgery?

english much? me eyes hurt

Since we were talking about how much the Strat's parking garage sucks....

Last night I discovered that you can park across the street where there's the Aztec casino and a boarded up motel. From there it's about the same distance to walk to the poker room, and it's much easier to get in/out.